News

Captaincy comes as a boost for Walker-Peters

Posted on 4 March 2016
- 09:46

Kyle Walker-Peters was thrilled to skipper our Under-21s for the first time in a competitive game during Thursday night’s 1-1 draw with Reading.

The full-back earned praise from coach Ugo Ehiogu for his captain’s performance in last week’s impressive 3-0 friendly win over Birmingham City and kept the armband as we returned to Barclays Under-21 Premier League duty against the Royals at Wycombe’s Adams Park.

We fell behind to a Jack Stacey strike in first-half stoppage time but responded in the second period through Will Miller, with Kyle relishing his more senior role in the side.

“It’s great to lead out the boys that I train with every day and obviously doing it for Tottenham – being a Tottenham fan myself – is fantastic too,” said the England youth international.

“Even when I don’t have the armband I like to think I’m a leader and I talk a lot on the pitch, but being captain does give you that extra responsibility.

“When you go up into senior football you need to be a confident character and be able to tell people what to do and I think having the armband helps with your confidence because people give you that bit more respect.”

Chances went begging as we sought a winner in the closing stages against the Royals but, while disappointed not to come away with all three points, Kyle pointed out the team’s adaptability as one of the positives to take away from the game.

“Last week’s friendly against Birmingham was probably one of the best performances we’ve had as a team and we tried to replicate that tonight but, when we realised what was and wasn’t working, we changed and adapted really well,” he explained. “That shows that we’re getting better as a side – we can recognise when things aren’t going well and we know how to play with different styles.

“Reading had some chances but we defended them well, we made some great blocks and up in their box we had some clear chances where usually we’d think we’d score.

“It’s important for us to win so the boys are obviously disappointed but I think we showed great character to get back into the game after conceding a sloppy goal. In the second half we got the goal back and we were really pushing for that second, but we were just a bit unfortunate.”